People For the American Way

Fighting against Big Money in Politics: The One Year Anniversary of McCutcheon v. FEC.

Today, April 2nd, marks the one year anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, McCutcheon v. FEC. The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision to remove limits on the total amount of spending an individual could contribute over a two year period to a federal level candidates, parties, or political action committees. Previously, the law limited the amount of money an individual could spend to $48,600 for individual candidates or $74,600 to a party or political action committee over a biannual period. The plaintiff in the case, Shaun McCutcheon, claimed that the limit on political spending was a violation of his First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Using a severely cramped definition of the type of corruption that campaign finance limitations can legitimately address, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote “Congress may target only a specific type of corruption—‘quid pro quo’ corruption . . . Spending large sums of money in connection with elections, but not in connection with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder’s official duties, does not give rise to quid pro quo corruption. Nor does the possibility that an individual who spends large sums may garner ‘influence over or access to’ elected officials or political parties”. The court, agreeing with McCutcheon, said that having limits on aggregate spending and campaign contributions was unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment.

The impact the McCutcheon v. FEC decision had on the 2014 elections was enormous. There was no longer an aggregate restriction on the amount of money an individual could give to candidates, parties and political committees. One of the biggest impacts of the court’s decision was the expansion of joint fundraising committees as fundraising tools. Joint committees are committees where candidates can combine their separate committees, party committees, and PAC’s into one single committee that fundraises together. As a result, nearly four billion dollars was given to candidates, parties, and political action committees combined, the most money ever spent in any midterm election. In 2014, out of the ten Senate races where the most money was spent on candidates, six of them finished within a ten point margin of victory, while in the ten House races where the most money was spent on candidates in 2014, seven of them ended within a five point margin of victory.

The McCutcheon decision has solidified the need for a constitutional amendment because big donors can now give virtually unrestricted amounts of money to influence elections. This money is used to produce television ads for or against candidates, send out direct mail attacking opponents, and to boost a candidate’s own credentials. Such dependence on campaign cash results in our elected officials becoming further beholden to the big donors interests instead of their constituents.

Fortunately, a nonpartisan movement is growing to get big money out of politics and overturn Supreme Court decisions like McCutcheonand Citizens United. Sixteen states, over 600 towns and cities, and over five million people have already gone on the record in support of a constitutional amendment that levels the political playing field and reduce the influence big money in our political system.